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Saturday, April 14, 2007

I know that I've copied these daily readings into my posts several times, but some days it's just SO right on to where I am at spiritually, emotionally and physically and it just seems to make sense to post it here. I've been thinking a lot lately about desires and what a challenge it is to acknowledge the Holy Spirit's influence in them without making the desire itself my god. I'm very bad at this. I have lived often out of the desire to just get everything situated, get the plan down, get everyone happy so we can just sit back and cruise through the rest of our life with comfort and joy. God has been re-programming me, but i realize this desire still lurks deep within me and taints almost all of my perspective on life. I choose not to live in a defeatist attitude of "what's the use in hoping when we live in a cursed earth and everyone around us is cursed by sin and my flesh refuses to stop trying to rule me!" but still live in the acknowledgement of the reality of this truth. It's a hard place to live and it grieves me -- and I know it grieves our Father. enough said....keep reading below....

The Promises of God
04/14/2007

God promises every man futility and failure; he guarantees every woman relational heartache and loneliness. We spend most of our waking hours attempting to end-run the curse. We will fight this truth with all we’ve got. Sure, other people suffer defeat. Other people face loneliness. But not me. I can beat the odds. We see the neighbor’s kids go off the deep end, and we make a mental note: They didn’t pray for their kids every day. And we make praying for our kids every day part of our plan. It doesn’t have to happen to us. We watch a colleague suffer a financial setback, and we make another note: He was always a little lax with his money. We set up a rigid budget and stick to it.

Isn’t there something defensive that rises up in you at the idea that you cannot make life work out? Isn’t there something just a little bit stubborn, an inner voice that says, I can do it? Thus Pascal writes,

All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end . . . This is the motive of every action of every man. But example teaches us little. No resemblance is ever so perfect that there is not some slight difference, and hence we expect that our hope will not be deceived on this occasion as before. And thus, while the present never satisfies us, experience dupes us and from misfortune to misfortune leads us to death. (Pensées)

It can’t be done. No matter how hard we try, no matter how clever our plan, we cannot arrange for the life we desire. Set the book down for a moment and ask yourself this question: Will life ever be what I so deeply want it to be, in a way that cannot be lost? This is the second lesson we must learn, and in many ways the hardest to accept. We must have life; we cannot arrange for it.

Tamara Hill Murphy

I am Tamara Murphy: born and raised in a cynical, smalltown Northeast still harboring a penchant for hope and big ideas. Now I live in the bright city of Austin, Texas with my audacious and often-homesick family: two daughters, two sons, one husband.

I believe in the power of the written word. I read and write words to make friends with the ancient, present and future. I write to encourage both you and me to see God's presence through daily practices of art, liturgy and relationship.